For an individual confined to a wheelchair, there are many physical obstacles which tend to make it difficult to move from place to place. In recent years, much more attention has been given to making buildings, especially public buildings, more accessible to wheelchairs. For example, ramps have been installed to replace stairs, and many doors to public buildings are now available with automatic electric or mechanical openers.
On the other hand, unfortunately, there are still many buildings having doors which are not of the automatic variety. To pass through such a door, the wheelchair confined individual must first operate a door latch, and then open the door a sufficient amount allowing the wheelchair to pass through. To further complicate matters, there are many instances in which the physical relationships between the wheelchair, the door, and the surrounding walls or structures, often makes this operating and opening exercise quite difficult. Thus, not only is it often difficult to reach the door latch from a seated position in the wheelchair, but physical relationships make it difficult to open the door once the latch has been operated.
There are a variety of common door latches now in use, each of which must be manipulated in a particular manner to open the door. There have been prior art tools for opening doors, but these have been shown to be inadequate in that they are typically latch specific, i.e. they are not adaptable to allow their use in operating a variety of door latches. For example, many doors are opened by rotating a doorknob or a handle while others are opened by operating a pinch-type latch having an element which must be compressed. Thus, a variety of tools would have to be carried on the wheelchair to ensure that an appropriate tool is always available for each possible door latch.
Assuming that the wheelchair passenger can get close enough to use the appropriate tool required to operate the door latch, another hurdle needs to be overcome. This, often the biggest problem, is actually opening the door. The door must be pulled or pushed out of the way so that the individual can proceed in his/her wheelchair through the door opening. Again, at times this can be a frustrating, difficult or even impossible feat.